There are a variety of computer-assisted surgery systems that exist for assisting a surgeon during a surgery. Such systems allow the surgeon to view the anatomy of a patient during surgery in order to be guided throughout the procedure. Surgical navigation using medical imaging is based on displaying, in real-time, instruments and patient anatomy to allow visualization of the complete surgical field. Patient anatomy can be obtained from a number of sources, such as CT-scan, digitization, fluoroscopy, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), and other such known technologies.
There are at least three body planes that each provides a different view of the anatomy. These body planes are generally referred to as the coronal or antero-posterior plane, sagittal or lateral plane, and transverse or axial plane. Each imaging source is designed to generate certain views of the body. For example, a CT-scan will take multiple slices of the anatomy, thereby providing axial planes throughout. A fluoroscope can take antero-posterior plane views and sagittal plane views.
In certain instances, a given view will provide information that is more useful to the surgeon during navigation than another view. However, a single type of imaging device may not necessarily be capable of generating all three views. The missing view(s) is(are) therefore not available or only available using another imaging device.